West Indies will continue: neutral-officials call

Press, 26 February 1980, Page 1

West Indies will continue: neutral-officials call

The West Indies cricket team will continue the second test at Lancaster Park today, and will play in the third test at Auckland. This was one of the few facts established at a press conference yesterday afternoon, at which the West Indies manager (Mr Willy Rodriguez) said that there had been no move for the West Indies to abandon the tour and go home. He said there would be a recommendation to his board that neutral umpires should be used in international cricket. He also apologised "if we have caused any embarrassment: but the issues were strong

and needed immediate attention.”

“Our problem remains a private one, and we have been able to sort it out,” he said. "The West Indies Board has been- informed of our discussions. They presented their views on our problems.” Mr Rodriguez said that the captain, Clive Lloyd, had called for a panel of neutral first-class umpires to be established. “I think it is necessary,” Mr Rodriguez said. “All international sport has neutral arbitrators, and it is time cricket fell into line. There must be something good about it if it is done in every top sport.”

Asked if he felt that the New Zealand umpires were unfair, he said: “I would

not say unfair, but I certainly have the feeling that these are not test-class umpires.” Some of the debatable decisions had gone against New Zealand, “but when you look at it, the percentage varies.” "It is a world problem, and I think neutral umpires are the answer,” he said. “We can never eliminate error but we can eliminate some of the more serious errors if we have a top-class panel.”

When it was mentioned that the New Zealand board intended to retain the umpires appointed for the Auckland test, Mr Rodriguez said his team would abide by that ruling. “There is a limit to physical and mental en-

Asked if his players were happy or merely obliged, to stay on in New Zealand, Mr Rodriguez said that the question had been put as if the team had intended to go. “In any team of 16 there will be strong feelings, which vary one way or the other. Everybody has his own feelings. There was no division in the team. It was just a matter of personal feelings.”

Mr Rodriguez said that the crowds had treated the West Indians "with respect, affection, and fair-minded-ness. I do really think we cannot complain from that point of view.” Mr Rodriguez was then asked if there was not a strong pointer to a proposal to go home in that the

players had removed all their equipment from the dressing room at Lancaster Park on Sunday evening. He said it was most unusual. “Call it whims or fancies, whatever it is,” he said. “If you are not doing well, you try to do something to bring something back to you.”

“How close were you to being the first team to break off a tour?” he was asked.

“Nobody has suggested we were going home,” he said.

“We have come to a decision. We hope and expect our players will abide ,by it.”

Speaking after the press conference, Mr Rodriguez said that the West Indies team was a team, it was

prepared to stick together through thick and thin, and if it had been the intention of the players not to continue with the tour all the players would have supported it. Mr Rodriguez listed some of the problems the West Indians had faced throughout their New Zealand tour.

The players had not been allowed to settle down or to feel welcome soon after they arrived in Auckland — “we felt like aliens from some outer space country” — and had missed the small courtesies which touring teams came to expect.

They felt, said Mr Rodriguez, that their efforts were being discredited by the media at every opportunity, and they had been

criticised for not providing spare players for outside functions.

“People wanted us to do their public relations,” said Mr Rodriguez. “How can they expect the captain of a team to speak at a breakfast on the morning of the first day of a test match?”

The West Indians felt they had been "ragged” at every opportunity and this did not help physically and mentally tired players in the change to New Zealand conditions. Mr Rodriguez was critical again of the umpiring in the first test at Carisbrook. “We thought we were on the wrong end of four or five decisions there.”

After the first test, Mr Rodriguez said, he spoke

to Mr R. A. Vance, chairman of the New Zealand Cricket Council’s board of control, and told him that the West Indians had lost confidence in the New Zealand umpires. Mr Rodriguez said that when Lance Cairns was caught in front of first slip in the second innings the umpire still had his hands in his pockets and if Cairns had not walked the decision would have gone against the West Indies, said Mr Rodriguez. There had been a big disparity between the number of ’appeals made and awarded to the New Zealanders and the number made and gained by the West Indians, said Mr Rodriguez. Fourth - day preview, back page